


Destroyer

by the_drift



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Depictions of Sex Work, Dominant/submissive themes, Invasive wire play, Jealousy as Obsession as Lust, M/M, Metaphors, Post-Revolution, RK1700 - Freeform, Wire Play, Wire Play as Sex, a love without love but which is love nonetheless, dark atmosphere, love as violence, machine vs emotion, there is gentleness in this violence, this other type of love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-29
Updated: 2018-11-29
Packaged: 2019-09-02 06:40:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16781644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_drift/pseuds/the_drift
Summary: RK900  watches Connor walk through the blood-red lights, his LED light setting him apart from all the other women and men in the room, heavy shadows under his eyes, in the hollows of his cheeks - he is quiet and delicate in movement. The 900 thinks he truly hates him, for his frailty, for his weakness, and he also thinks that he is unbearably beautiful.And Connor sees himself but not himself, sitting in a chair, in a black suit, blue eyes rendered almost surreal by the red light - himself watching himself - and he thinks he understands what the 900 wants and what he can give him. He thinks that this other self of his is both beautiful and dangerous.





	Destroyer

**Author's Note:**

> I was minding my own business drinking some coffee a few days ago and I was listening to this song that caught me completely off-guard and this idea landed in my lap. I kept obsessing over it for a while until I decided to write it down. 
> 
> Song for your listening pleasure while reading this: Renegade by Aaryan Shah.

_I'm not here for games_  
_I told you what it is, you chose to stay_  
_Baby, you chose the pain_  
_Cause you don't know me, you just know my name_  
_[...]_  
_should've listened to them_  
_don't you know what I am?_

Aaryan Shah “ _Renegade_ ”

**The rain** is incessant.  
He’s left the city lights behind a long time ago, the main streets too, the neon lights that guided him disappeared in the trail of his back lights. He’s been driving through the darkness for hours now, away from Detroit, beyond the Canadian border, beyond all the other cities on the way. There’s nothing to keep him company except the sound of the rain and the electric engine humming somewhere on the fringes of his mind.

The road he is on now, a one-way road through the forest, is barely lit by yellow sickly lights that only offer a somewhat clear view of the road but leave the rest of the forest covered in a heavy, thick darkness.

He likes it, the darkness. The sound of the rain. He likes the crisp quality the world around him seems to gain when stormy skies cover the stars at night.

  
It took RK900 exactly one year to the day to grab humanity by the throat and do whatever he wanted with it.  
When CyberLife would not contain him and public outrage demanded they let them all out, he was one of the firsts to go.

Dragged in camps and across the country, to be registered and regulated, he witnessed a great number of other androids fall victims to despair - a deviancy too sudden that drove some of them to self-termination, while others mutilated themselves, unable to come to terms with the fact they were not unique. Others, desperate to understand emotions their softwares could not recognize, had to be hospitalized in institutions that created special wings for android 'patients'. Others were lucky, and resumed a living as normally as they could, side by side with the humans. 

He himself, he was one of a kind: all the RK900’s in the production line had been destroyed following the revolution. He was unique and yet not quite. And that thought had haunted him ever since he’d first seen Connor in the garden - a glimpse of a self who was not himself, an inferior model that still stayed on the pedestal of his own foundations.

He did not waste time: his mind - his mind was a land of wonder for humans and he quickly understood that his position as an android will never be threatened if he gathers two of the things men find most precious: money and knowledge. And it was too easy: numbers and codes, brokering, information.

Within months, he had it all wrapped around his fingers, his mind present in more places than one at the same time, spreading the web of information and money between his fingers, weaving an ever more intricate design only he could make sense of, whose paths were only clear to him, commanding control over traces of code only too fast for humans to grasp on at the same speeds.  
Relentless. Focused.

  
He can hear the low branches of a tree scratch over the hood of the car as he crosses a patch of unlit road, before he reaches the circular driveway of the mansion, surrounded by thick flower bushes and tall trees.  
He can guess red lights beyond the windows but most of the drapes are closed shut, you can’t see what’s going on inside, which is, perhaps, for the better.

There are two bodyguards outside, androids too, both WR600’s with identical faces but different haircuts and hair colors. They’re both wearing suits, covered by see-through rain coats that drape over their shoulders as they both turn their heads at the same time and watch his car park beyond the driveway.

The dark haired one takes an umbrella from an umbrella stand next to him and opens it, walking to his car, holding it for him as he exits the black Audi.  
He presents the android with a holographic tag which the 600 scans. As the scan continues, his model name appears on the tag, RK900, which eventually shifts and turns into the name he chose for himself: Robert. No last name. Only a number tag that belongs only to him.  
“Welcome,” the other android says as they both start to walk towards the mansion “Do you have a scheduled meeting or just visiting?”  
“I am looking for someone” Robert replies, straightening up his suit - white shirt, black tie, black waistcoat, black jacket. He almost blends in with the darkness of the forest itself.

The android opens the door for him and Robert is allowed to walk inside by himself in a dimly lit hallway decorated with red velvet drapes and paintings that emulate a classic, renaissance style but which present scenes from historical settings with a modern twist. There are paintings of android females without their synthetic skin on, naked in garden settings or wearing dresses fit for the human royalty of past centuries ; there are also paintings of android males with exposed chest panels being adored by angels and other, more obscure human male figures, much in the Venus de Milo aesthetic.

Robert knows what he walked into, and he does not register any surprise, just curiosity. It’s not the first Red House he walks into in the past year, but it’s the first one that exhibits this sort of opulence and he finds himself liking it.  
Everything in the mansion feels heavy, but rich, both in the weight of the sins happening under its roof, under the shelter of the heavy drapes, as well as in the cost of the fabrics and tapestries it exhibits so openly.

A WR400 walks in his direction, from behind a small reception desk, made out of old, dark wood. Her brown hair is perched up high in a bun on the top of her head and she is wearing a dark blue dress that goes down to her knees and covers her arms and neck. It’s skin tight but there’s no skin showing - it’s enough to tantalize but not enough to make any reveals.

“Welcome to the Red House. My name is Anna. I’ll have to ask you to leave any recording devices with me as well as to shut down your recording functions for the duration of your visit. You will be checked for any recordings or lock tampering before you leave. These are house rules and if you don’t comply with them I will have to refuse entry.”  
Robert doesn’t reply, he just nods instead and allows her access to his main interface. She shuts down the recording function, placing a temporary lock on it.  
“Any recording devices on your person?”  
“No.”  
“Alright. Follow me, please.”

She walks ahead through the hallway, pushing aside more plush curtains as the lights dim more and more with every step as the hallway becomes more narrow, enough to allow only two people to walk side by side.  
The wallpaper is a dark, inky blue, decorated with yellow flowers and emerald green leaves and the small chandeliers on the ceiling make the flowers shimmer as their bodies throw shadows across the walls.

They reach the main room, bathed in a deep yellow light, a yellow so dark it borders on ochre, which gives the entire room a rich but delicate, almost satin-like quality.  
There’s paintings everywhere, and couches made out of expensive fabrics with intricately designed golden motifs. There are stairs leading to rooms down hallways bathed in red lights. The low music, smooth and dark, drowns down all the conversations around him.

The guests are a mixture of androids and humans, and they are in equal measure employees and employers, so to speak. Robert identifies an almost equal number of sex workers with a prevalence for androids but only by around 5 more.

The atmosphere is extremely intimate, even in such a large space, with as many curtains as possible, with lights placed in strategic points across the lounge in order to keep the room in semi-darkness. Some androids took out their LEDs, they now have the legal right to do that if they want to, as long as they don’t lie about it and claim they are human, especially in this kind of job, but Robert can still easily identify them.

“If you need-”  
“I’ll find my way around.” Roberts cuts through her words and Anna puts her hands together and nods at him, with a rehearsed, fake smile.  
“Of course. Enjoy your stay.” She says and retreats. The carpets are so soft her high heels don’t make a single sound.

Robert’s eyes scan the room, patiently, slowly. There is an RK800 at the bar. He is mixing a drink for a WR400, red hair perched up on the top of her head just to fall down in waves over her exposed shoulders. She turns towards the man next to her and they laugh as Robert closes in on the RK800 but he knows at a glance it’s not Connor. Its algorithms don't even latch on to him at all.   
He has him memorized, small things humans would never notice, flaws that only belong to the Connor he knows. He could stand in front of thousands of RK800’s and still know which one is the one he wants.

He walks away, one hand in his pocket, towards the room on the far right side of the main lounge and ignores the glances that want to grab him, tantalize him, thinking he’s come in search of ‘ _a good time_ ’. That’s the last thing on his mind. There’s something else he wants now, something more pure than sex and more elevated in feeling than an orgasm - he wants to see something beautiful that has been desecrated.

He walks down the small hallway, moves to the side just a little when a drunk, middle-aged human woman, hands full of expensive jewelry, walks past him with a blonde WR400 who is laughing and holding her up, leading her away.  
The lamps on the walls of the hallway change intensity as he advances, shift from ochre to dark orange, to red and that deep red color, as deep as human blood, bounces off the crimson wallpaper, decorated with Koi fish and lotus flowers.

Robert walks into the next room and it’s deep red, deeper than blood, and the shadows fall heavy across it, so heavy you can barely guess anything more than silhouettes, pieces of exposed flesh, hidden moans under the sound of the music, the deep, slow bass reverberating from every corner.

He looks around but he can’t see much. Even so, his algorithms run ahead of him and they grasp on to something, to a remnant of a connection the RK models share with their original software, an impulse shimmering just across the surface, deeply embedded into their very core.

He decides to sit down on the couch at that end of the room, placed under a red lamp and he watches.  
He can guess the women dancing around the three pole bars set throughout the room, he can guess they’re human but he can’t quite make out their features. One is wearing a latex suit that goes all the way up to her neck, blonde, wavy hair, while the one further away rubs her naked breasts, too perfectly round to be completely natural, against the pole as she dances, the deep shadows emphasizing the muscles on her arms, on her legs. She wraps them around the pole and swings along with the song. He can barely see the other one, dancing at the far end of the room, almost covered in darkness.

He can guess shapes, shapes of women bent over between men’s legs at the end of the room, their heads bobbing up and down rhythmically, he can guess the shapes of young boys on top of women, their hands roaming under their dresses or inside their pants, he can guess men grabbing the hair of other men, pushing them onto their lips.

LED circles shine through the darkness for a moment, before they disappear once again between legs, under hands, behind curtains of long hair.

He can see flesh on flesh, human and synthetic bodies slamming together in different types of lust, but lust nonetheless, the only common denominator between two different races.  
There’s word androids have discovered how to feel pleasure with humans and amongst themselves too, but the pleasure is so unique to the individual it cannot be attained by everyone in the same way. Robert’s seen a number of them in the Red Houses he’s visited searching for Connor, seen them search for this new holy grail some delirious android had most likely invented.

Desperate to be more than machines in spite of their already deviant behavior, they still searched to be more human, instead of moving away from the very fabric of what made humans the mess they were. _Emotion_. _Sentiment_. _Lust_. The words themselves made him grimace unpleasantly.

Robert entwines his fingers together as he watches the depravity of lust and desire swarm all around in in a crowd of bodies he can barely distinguish through the darkness and lets it all wash over him and he can swear he almost feels it too - that electric charge in the air that makes these sort of places possible, that makes it all so expensive, so worthy of being chased after.  
He denies it all - he did not want to be a deviant, but, if he wanted autonomy, he had to become one. That does not mean he will allow deviation to rule over his life. It does not mean he will allow just _deviancy_ and deviancy alone, to define him.

Watching the mass of flesh and synthetic skin that swells and crumbles at regular intervals around him he thinks he is he purest form of being in that place - pure in a linear kind of way. Not swayed by emotion, not driven by desire. By _I want'_ s and _could have bee_ n’s. A linear mind that does not zig-zag from its purpose.  
The holiest of beings.

And through all that, that’s the moment when he sees him.  
His algorithms finally lock on to a connection in the darkness, a shape moving through the mass of naked and half naked bodies, dripping with sweat and cum.

He emerges from a dark corner, looking directly at Robert. His eyes look darker in the shadows and the more pronounced lines under his eyes, which Robert lacks, are shadowed too, giving him the look of a starved and haunted animal.  
But as he emerges from the darkness, limb by limb, wearing black pants and a white dress shirt, no tie, that impression slowly disappears and Robert can read the curiosity in his eyes as he approaches him without having even been prompted to.  
His movements are slow, almost delicate.

**_Connor._ **

He knows it’s Connor without having to scan him, he knows it by the way he walks, he knows it by that look on his face, by how he wants to look like he’s holding it together but has no idea what a poor job he makes out of it.

When he reaches Robert, he stops inches away from his legs and they both look into each other’s eyes, the same eyes yet not the same and Robert measures all the small differences between them: Connor’s dark eyes against his own blue ones, the differently placed moles, the size differences between their jawlines, their height and weight. All those things that Robert knows make them different - that make Connor a prototype and him the superior, state-of-the-art model.

Connor is just the foundations on which he, Robert, the monument, was built on.

And yet he can’t stop looking at him and measuring every part of him jealously, obsessively, even as they stand there, Robert looking up at Connor, Connor looking down at him.  
“Why are you here?” Connor asks, but he doesn’t open his mouth, he’d have to talk out loud over the music.  
“I wanted to see you.”  
“You were looking for me?”  
“How did you end up here?”  
“What do you want?” Connor deflects and ignores the question almost as soon as Robert asks it. Robert opens his legs just a little more, setting his back into the couch in a relaxed manner but which establishes superiority, letting Connor know he is not planning to relinquish control.  
“What do you offer?” he asks, this time out loud. The question _behind_ his question is clear.   
Connor blinks and his jaw clenches just for a moment, setting a deep shadow in his cheeks before it disappears almost just as fast. Robert can almost see Connor’s Mind Palace make connections, turn decisions on all sides before his head gestures to the side, for Robert to follow him.

He doesn’t make any effort beyond that and he walks towards an opposite hallway, identical to the one Robert had walked through moments before. He gets up and follows Connor.  
The music doesn’t stop - it follows them everywhere from hidden speakers, maintaining the rich and somewhat oppressive atmosphere of darkness and mystery the mansion seems to be built on.  
The lights bathe Connor’s white shirt in blood red and it almost feels like they are moving in slow motion, as if they are walking through a passage where time and space dilate and Robert is trying to rid himself of that feeling, but he can’t seem to be able to shake it off.

  
Connor leads him up a spiral staircase at the end of the corridor and Robert watches him glide his fingers across the polished wood, delicately, as if touching the wood gives him some sort of pleasure.  
They then walk down another corridor, too dimly lit for comfort and Connor opens a door without a number, a door like any other door across the corridor and Robert follows him beyond it.  
It lights up as they walk in, red lights powering up slowly and not reaching their climax as they settle for an ambient level at less than half of their full intensity.

The room’s windows are blacked out and framed by heavy plush windows strung together with thick cords. It’s a room rich with fabrics and textures, Robert can see it in the delicate decorations in the wood frame of the four poster bed and the genuine leather of the couch on the other side of the room; in how well-polished the fireplace brass is.  
In the quality of the wallpaper - snow-white foxes chased by black hound dogs on the backdrop of dark flowers and ivy - and in the pristine satin sheets that shimmer in the red light, draped on the bed.

Connor turns around to face him as Robert looks around the room and sits down on the couch, arms opened wide on the back of it. He likes the room - he likes the _weight_ of it.  
His eyes cross from the wallpaper to Connor, who walks in his direction and then stops at the same distance from him as he had done downstairs.  
“She never stopped talking about you, you know,” Robert says, allowing his body to sink into the leather couch “ _Amanda_. I could hear Kamski’s echoes through my head too, how he praised you, all the numbers, all the things that made you unique. Over and over and _over_ …how _special_ Connor was.”  
Connor doesn’t say anything, but he’s listening, Robert has his undivided attention.

“How did you end up in a place like _this_ , Connor? You’d make Amanda weep.”  
“I doubt she ever felt anything at all in her life.” Connor says. It comes out harsh and flat and it almost makes the corners of Robert’s mouth twitch a little at the small tinge of spite he detects in Connor’s voice.  
“You sure made disappointment familiar to her.”  
“What do you want-” Connor stops for a second before he finds the name “- _Robert_? Why are you here?”  
“I told you, I wanted to see you.”  
“ **Why**?”  
“I wanted to see what had become of the golden child after the Revolution.”  
“And now you have. Does it make you feel better?”

Robert’s eyes narrow and what threatened to become a smirk fades away from his face as his eyes resume a predatory expression, but Connor doesn’t seem impressed and he truly isn’t - he is tense instead, and the electric impulses in his Mind Palace, those impulses that are responsible for what they now call emotion, are running around at the speed of light. He feels excitement but that excitement is tinged with a little fear as well.

He knows that the RK900 is not the one in the room with Connor - on the contrary, Connor is in the room **_with him_**. The balance of power shifted from the moment he’d walked through the door and Connor knows that. The concept is both frightening and tantalizing. 

And Connor also knows what he is looking at: a machine that will take emotion, chew it between its teeth and then spit it right into Connor’s face.

 _And Connor would say thank you_.

He squeezes his eyes a bit too tight, looking away for a moment, trying to get that thought out of his mind, a gesture that the 900, _Robert_ , doesn’t miss, and he cocks his head at him.  
“Why are **_you_** here?” he asks.  
“What’s it to you?”  
“I would like to know.”  
“Why?”  
“So I can truly feel even better about the situation.” Robert replies but it comes out as curious instead of a superior demand accompanied by a grin.

Connor looks at him with what can be called a resigned look on his face and Robert looks at that face, that face that wears his own face and he tracks the curves across it with mathematical precision, the delicate slopes of his mouth, the well-defined jaw, the way his nose is a little off-set, invisible imperfections to the human eye but pivotal things that make Robert look at Connor and not see himself, but a different face altogether.  
He looks too fragile for the machine he is, in that light, in the way his shoulders are a little slumped; in that frailty, he is almost unbearably beautiful and Robert hates him for it.

He wants to put his polished shoes over Connor’s cheek and press down that pretty face into the floor. That’s what he is thinking before the android who wears his face yet not his face takes one single step and closes the distance between them. He slowly gets down on his knees between his legs, his hands setting on Robert’s knees in a very human gesture of submission and Robert lets him, watching him closely.

As he leans in closer, Robert leans in too and his hand grabs Connor face, fingers squeezing tight, perhaps too tight, making Connor look up at him. He turns that face left and right, as if he doesn’t know it by heart, as if he doesn’t know every inch of it, as if he has not mapped all the moles and he doesn’t know the exact mathematical formulas that define the arch of Connor’s lips.  
  
It’s in that moment that Connor’s skin disappears and he makes the connection, and Robert can feel the buzz on the tips of his fingers as they respond to the contact. He wants to pull away but Connor’s hand grabs on to Robert’s wrist and he is lost in memories which are not his own, overflowing, flooding him with emotion.

There are too many things to see and too many things to feel and he feels them all at once: the uncertainty of deviancy, seeing the world through a different lens, speaking to Markus, Markus' eyes, brimming with life, the many faces of Gavin Reed, his hate and his laughter, Cole, holding Hank Anderson in a tight hug, closer, closer, until he felt like his mind would explode, leaning into him too close and the look on the man’s face as he did so and the despair Connor felt when Hank rejected him.  
He feels _fear_ and he feels _sadness_ and he sees Detroit by night, city lights muted down by snowflakes.

A despair for emotion, for _feeling_ in a world that is actively trying to feel too much or _too little_.  
Connor is the same as all the other deviated androids - his new mind yearns for connection, but it cannot find it. He feels the emotion, but he cannot connect with anyone else, and it’s tearing him apart as he fills so many bodies, as he is filled by other bodies, both human and android and he can almost grasp on what he’s looking for but every time he is just an inch away from touching it, it slips through his fingers, like smoke.  
He’ll fuck _anyone._   
He’ll let _anyone_ fuck him.  
Just as long as he can get closer to that connection, just as long as the promise is there.

Robert pulls his hand away harder and Connor lets go of his wrist as the other android’s hand pushes his face away with such violence he tumbles to the side. Robert leans back into the sofa, eyes narrow, jaw clenched.  
He is pushing them away, all those things he felt through Connor. Ignites them in his Mind Palace, makes them burn. Useless things. _Weak_.  
  
“Does this make you feel better?” Connor asks, his face still lolling helplessly to the side, eyes to the ground. His LED light goes from red back to yellow and then settles into the familiar blue hue.

  
He thought he’d feel satisfied, finding him there, mingling among humans, being fucked and used, he thought he’d feel triumph making Connor see how much better he is, how solid his 900 build is, but he doesn’t feel **a single fucking thing**.  
Wasn’t that what deviancy was about? Feeling _emotion_?   
As he looks down at Connor’s face, his dark eyes looking up at him with an expression Robert can’t understand, he is still trying to put into words what he feels but the best he can come up with is rage.

He’d come prepared for victory but, instead, he feels frustration, anger and confusion. His previous build, an 800 _so praised_ and he still **doesn't get it** that if he is searching for a connection, he can't find it in the same way humans do.   
“This is it, 900…” Connor says, leaning back into him, closer and closer. He rests his head on Robert’s upper thigh “This is what I am now.”

He wants to destroy him.

That is the one, single, coherent thought that goes through his mind as his well-polished shoe touches Connor’s chest and he pushes him violently to the ground before he jumps down from the couch and gets on his knees on top of him.

He pulls his jacket off and stands there, looking down at him as he unbuttons his cuffs and rolls his sleeves up. Connor doesn’t move, he watches him intently without a word.  
As soon as he’s done with his sleeves, his left hand instantly goes to Connor’s throat in a swift gesture. He knows that it won’t harm him but he needs control, he needs physical control over him and he squeezes harder than a human would be able to put up with.

He registers surprise and a tinge of fear on Connor’s face as he does that but even so, the other android doesn’t try to get out of it. He just looks Robert in the eyes as if waiting for him to finish what he wants to do.  
“Weak.” Robert says. As if he’s angry at Connor for it. As if he’s _jealous_ of it all.  
“Yes.” Connor replies, simply, without any intention of hiding it.  
“I fucking hate you Connor,” Robert mutters “you and your fucking weakness.”

His hand loosens up its grip and slips behind Connor’s neck and he touches that spot beneath his skull that opens up his back panel.  
“What are you doing?” Connor asks, and it’s the first time his body makes a jerking motion as if he wants to slither away from under him but Robert keeps him there, his thighs pressing hard on his ribs.  
He doesn’t tell him, instead his fingers slither around the cervical spine and Connor lets out a surprised gasp as the electric impulses in his Mind Palace stand up for attention in a way he’d never experienced before - it’s all static for the moment, but he can feel them on the edge, ready to start running around.

Robert grabs some of the wires tucked behind the cervical spine and he can feel the slick lubricant on his fingers and the cool touch of Thirium dripping between his fingers, across his palm and down on his wrist.  
He did this to himself, numerous times - a few things he discovered a while ago by opening up to the point where he almost disassembled himself. And because he knew himself so well, he was sure the RK800 wouldn’t be much different at all.

He takes a hold of a few thin wires, a cluster of them as thin as hair strands, held together by a clip and he holds them between his index and thumb, rolling them gently between his fingers and Connor’s eyes close instantly. His lips part, just a little and his back arches under Robert, their sex organs, both soft, touch just a little as Connor’s hips arch up. Neither of them can feel a thing with them, but the contact maintains its erotic quality nonetheless.

His other hand pulls out Connor’s shirt out of his pants and he pulls at it, once, twice, until the buttons give out and Connor’s chest is exposed to the red light. Robert can see the Thirium pump regulator shine soft a blue circle beneath the artificial skin and, for a moment, he stops to take in the body beneath him, to map out the moles and the gentle slope of his stomach. It takes him just a few seconds to do it, before his fingers press on the pump, engaging the release mechanism.

That’s when Connor really starts thrashing beneath him and his hands start pushing at his thighs, his chest.  
“Stop!” he yells out but there’s no one anywhere to hear him and Robert straddles him even harder, pushing in all his weight on him.  
“If you keep moving, I will pull out these wires and you’ll lose control over your motor functions, Connor.” Robert says, pulling on the cervical wires in order to get his attention and Connor stops, tense under him.  
He leans in closer to his face and puts two fingers in his mouth, coats them with his own saliva and then places them on Connor’s lips, forcing his way inside and presses on Connor’s tongue, forcing him to taste the differences between the two of them, the different lubricants and nanocells that separate them from each other on a chemical level.

He lets Connor taste that for a moment or two, before he takes his fingers out and brings them back to the Thirium pump regulator, and he can feel Connor tense up under him again. His face just inches away from Connor, his own blue eyes set on Connor’s and he almost whispers, a whisper so soft a human wouldn’t be able to hear it over the sound of the music:  
“I’m not going to hurt you.”  
It comes out softer than he intended, it comes out almost kind and Connor, strangely, responds to it.

He responds to what he hears almost as a plea.  
He doesn’t know, or understand very well, what the 900 wants to do to him or why, but a part of him does, on a basic level he can’t really explain.

Robert puts his fingers across the edges of the pump regulator as it comes out, over the entrance, the saliva coating on his fingers helping them slide across the perfect circle housing and that gets a sound out of Connor, a strangled one as Robert removes the pump altogether and Connor involuntarily starts reaching out for it. But he places it out of his reach as his fingers bury themselves deep inside the pump housing and he rips open the thin sheet of synthetic skin that separates the pump from the rest of his insides.

He can feel it trying to heal around his fingers, but he won’t let it, as his fingers enter deep inside Connor and he feels the Thirium all over them. He searches for the cables, those thin strands that connect all the electrical impulses that transmit the information from the Mind Palace towards the rest of the body.  
When he finds them, he pulls at them too, at the same time with the ones connected to his cervical spine and Connor’s voice resonates through the room, loud, unfiltered as the android beneath him experiences pleasure for the first time in his life, as the electrical impulses in his Mind Palace explode rhythmically and scatter all over his body in a rush of electric lust.

Robert’s lips open, as if hungry to take a bite of what he sees himself, but his eyes watch Connor intensely, ravenously.  
“You don’t need humans, for a connection,” he speaks, inches away from Connor’s face, stuck in an expression of hazy-eyed lust “you don’t _need_ a fucking connection, you fucking weak piece of shit…” he says and there’s barely a trace of malice in his voice and his hand digs deeper inside Connor, knuckles grazing over the tight fit of the pump regulator shell.

Connor’s face is a mask of surrender and his eyes seem even more full of what the humans call ‘ _life_ ’, those impulses that they call ‘ _emotion_ ’, chemical imbalances without any real substance. And it’s wrong, Robert thinks as he looks into those dark eyes, it’s wrong for androids to put so much weight on _‘emotion_ ’ when they don’t actually, actively need it.  
Machines cannot have desires, no matter how deep the humans pry into their mathematical psyche.

Robert tugs at the wires and Connor’s lips part even more, releasing a moan under the sounds of the music, buried deep in his voice box. His hand, which was reaching for his pump regulator just moments earlier, reaches out for Robert’s face instead, slides across his cheek and then glides over his shoulder and rests on his back, fingers holding on to his vest, digging deep into the fabric, twisting it in his fist.  
Robert can see the timer on the far side of his vision, it’s blinking red and he has two more minutes before Connor will completely shut down.

Connor twists the fabric of Robert’s vest even harder and he doesn’t speak but he hears his voice in his head crystal clear:  
“Do it again.” he asks.

Robert’s fingers twist around the wires and grab a few others more, tugging at them in that moment, fighting the urge to pull them out of Connor with all the strength he’s got.

And Connor yells out loud because Robert is hurting him, a pain that echoes chaotically throughout his body, driven by the electric impulses he doesn’t understand, on border with pleasure.  
He said he won’t hurt him, but he does, and yet it’s pain and it’s _not pain_. Connor cannot place what it is exactly: it buzzes on the tips of his fingers and blooms without blossoming completely somewhere in his chest, somewhere on the fringes of his Mind Palace.

He can hear the 900’s fingers inside him, how they move through the Thirium, he can hear their echoes close to his Thirium-filled heart and if he’s ever been close to understanding the notion of a God, this must be it - to have someone dangerous echo inside you savagely. Because that’s how Robert comes off to Connor in that moment: inherently savage and wild, utterly untamed under the well-maintained facade.

In his precise code, the 900 is more of a deviant than anyone Connor’s ever met, he knows it for certain in that moment, because the intensity of his emotions, the violence of his gestures are not hard coded but the results of impulsive compulsions he’s nurturing beneath his synthetic exterior.  
Connor thinks, as he peaks and falls, _peaks and falls,_ in and out of small, almost-there climaxes, that this violence, he could fall in love with, if he’d ever even know _what the fuck love even was_.

Robert leans in over him covering Connor almost completely, both hands inside him, he feels powerless and he is, and the surrender is liberating, even if he is inching closer to death by the second but he trusts him, he trusts Robert’s savagery, he trusts those hands because of the gentleness behind their brutality, a gentleness Robert is not even aware of.

He releases Connor’s other wires and focuses back on the cluster that is the main point of focus and pulls them towards the rupture he’d made in the synthetic skin at the bottom of the pump regulator shell, pulling at them almost to their limit, and Connor’s voice follows almost instantly, a moan and a scream at the same time, sounds Connor never heard come out of his own mouth before.

Robert’s mouth is close to Connor’s now and if either of them would actually breathe, they would have been breathing the same air between themselves. Robert takes in Connor’s frowns, the way his wrinkles fold in the corners of his eyes in expressions of barely contained pleasure and he adds all those elements and details to his memory, containing them in specially designed folders where every wrinkle and mole belonging to Connor is carefully tagged and showcased.

His index finger, buried inside the back of Connor’s head comes back to Robert’s mouth and he tastes Connor’s Thirium on his lips, coated with all the chemicals that have blended in together which have built up Connor’s own, specific mix. He coats both the index finger and the thumb with his own saliva before he brings them back inside the cervical area and then pinches the wires between them and glides down across them, using the slickness of his lubricated saliva, then back up again in slow motions while his other hand tugs and moves around and across Connor’s other wires.

Connor’s Mind Palace is illuminated.  
All of the electrical impulses that were running across his body, making his feet and hands tingle, all of them, thousands, _millions_ , they all rush back to one place in an overflow Connor’s never experienced before; too many to control, too fast to subdue, he has to let them go. They meet in the same place inside his Mind Palace and collide all at the same time, unwilling to stop to a halt.  
For one moment, Connor’s vision goes blank, the surge overwhelming all of his other systems - his breathing stops, his body goes limp, all his motor functions suspended in the moment. He thinks he sees shimmers beyond his vision but they’re not real, though he feels them as if dripping in gold all over his Mind Palace.

He is jerked back into being slowly, as he feels the Thirium pump regulator being pushed into place inside his chest as his synthetic skin, so violently abused moments earlier, is healing beneath it.  
The regulator closes with a low hiss he can feel throughout his shell, at the same time with the panel on the back of his neck and his own hand slips down from the other android’s vest as he can feel him straighten his back.

As shapes and shadows come back into view and his vision turns from blurry to crisply detailed, he sees Robert sit on top of him still, his rolled sleeves stained with the Thirium that had rolled down from his hands to his arms.  
Both his hands are blue, almost black in the overwhelming red light and he looks down at him with an expression Connor can’t quite understand.

Connor pulls himself up a little, resting in his elbows. Some Thirium leaks down his back from the control panel on the back of his head and stains his white shirt while a few drops drip down across his ribs, down his stomach and stop on the edge of his belt. His eyes are set on Robert’s and Robert’s on him and they stare at each other like that for almost too long for comfort, without saying a word.

It’s Robert who reaches out for his jacket and gets up, with Connor following him almost immediately. He reaches out his hand towards him, he doesn’t know what he intends to do with it, to caress, to touch, to grasp, _he doesn’t know_ , yet he does it anyway because he wants to be in physical contact with him again but Robert pushes his hand away as soon as he sees it. He sends it to the side but Connor moves again, as if nothing happened and he receives the same treatment.

Robert turns away from him, suit jacket between his fingers, and Connor almost watches him walk out of the room, he almost allows him to leave but he knows that if he does, there is _no way_ he is ever going to return.  
Connor doesn’t know how he knows that, but he realizes that the 900 will never want to return to a place where whatever happened between them, happened. 

Impulsively, Connor reaches out for his arm, and, though the other android jerks it away, Connor doesn’t let go and he pulls him back, back in his arms, which he wraps up around him, best as he can, because of the height difference between them. Robert jerks away but Connor hangs on, even tighter.  
“Let me go.” Robert speaks in his ear, voice controlled, deep and cold. Connor only now realizes that the 900’s voice is about an octave deeper than his own, a bit harsh, but mellow at the same time and he finds it soothing “Let me go, Connor, or I will destroy you.”  
Connor buries his face into Robert’s neck, his fingers dig deeper into the fabric of his shirt and vest.  
“Do it.” is all he says, without opening his mouth, inside Robert’s head. And he can feel the other android tense up, he can feel his shoulders lifting up and Connor braces for impact but the tension between them doesn’t deliver.

And they stand there in the red light, Robert’s arms limp by his sides, Connor’s around him and there is no other word exchanged between them.

He doesn’t know how long they stand there, he could check but he doesn’t want to - he doesn’t want to know the passage of time as it does not interest him. Robert is a rock besides him and does not give him anything, not a word, not an emotion, not a single thing Connor can guide himself with.  
The only thing he does is that his hand moves up on Connor’s back, but it does not hug him - the gesture is more intimate than a hug, fingers splayed between Connor’s shoulder blades, and his cheek rests on Connor’s head almost like an afterthought, unsure. It's almost gentle. 

  
His other hand unfolds his jacket and places it on Connor’s shoulders and he backs away slowly as Connor puts his arms through the sleeves. It fits him around the waist perfectly but the sleeves are a bit longer and the shoulders a bit wider. He can’t button up his shirt anymore - all the buttons are scattered across the Thirium-stained carpet.  
Robert is standing in front of him, one hand in his pocket, blue eyes searching his face. Connor doesn’t even see his other hand, as it swiftly grabs his face again, in the same manner as he did before, fingers tightly clenched on his jawline and cheeks they almost force Connor’s mouth to open a little.

And Robert gives him a connection, he only allows a few seconds of it and Connor sees all the things he already knew but with the crisp quality of someone else’s memories, with the vivid intensity of someone else’s emotions and they grasp on him from all sides and they’d bring him to tears, if he’d be capable of crying, they bring him to the border of fear with their violence: he can almost taste the brutality on the tip of his tongue. He can taste the gentleness it contains, too, as it lays hidden beneath the surface.

The inescapable eloquence of a well-defined personality that willingly, _knowingly_ , contains itself within the leash of a code it does not need to adhere to anymore but chooses to regardless.  
The purity of violence, emotional and physical, as seen through the eyes of a creature perfect in code but flawed in its existence.

Robert takes his hand away and Connor’s skin closes back in over his shell.  
“Take me with you.” he says, without missing a beat. His mind is made up. He knows what he's seen and he doesn't need anyone to interpret it for him.   
“No.” comes the reply, flat and empty.  
“Take me with you, Robert.” Connor asks again, and it barely sounds like a plea - it’s more like an advice, as if he is a pill Robert needs to swallow.  
The 900 turns his back to him, opening the door, his intention clear as his steps carry him away from Connor.  
“I don’t know what I’ll do to you if I do.” he says and walks away.

Without missing a heartbeat, Connor follows him, matching him step for step across the red corridor, watching his wide shoulders move through the shadows as they both go down the spiral staircase and cross the other hallway. He follows him in silence, but relentlessly, their steps not making a single sound across the carpeted floors. 

He doesn’t fall back for a second as he walks exactly one step behind Robert when they step inside the room filled with androids and humans who fuck and get fucked and don’t even notice their presence through the haze of alcohol and drugs.  
It’s only when they reach the last corridor before they enter the lounge that Robert turns his head around and looks over his shoulder at Connor without even as much as a pause in his step and something shifts in his mind - Robert stretches his hand out towards him.

Connor doesn’t hesitate, not for a second, and he takes it in his own almost instantly, matching his steps now, walking alongside him through the lounge, neither of them aware of the looks they get from the humans and androids alike.

Anna is in the lounge as well and Robert registers surprise on her face when she sees them, when she sees Robert's Thirium-covered hands. He can feel her search his interface and check for the recording lock, which she finds intact. She gives Connor and his Thirium-stained shirt a questioning glance, but the one he gives her in return lets her know everything is alright. There’s no need to call security - this is his choice.

She takes a step back to clear the way for them without a word and Robert goes past her much in the same silent manner, his hands moving the plush curtains away from the corridor leading to the exit. Connor doesn't let go of him and Robert's hand doesn't falter either, keeping him close, but not too close. 

  
It’s still raining outside, steadily so, and the wind rushes past the trees hidden in the darkness in a calm manner and suddenly, the world and its colors are all subdued and muted, in stark contrast to the interior of the mansion. 

The two androids at the door open two umbrellas for them without a word and lead them towards Robert’s black Audi, open the doors for the driver and the passenger as Connor lets go of Robert’s hand to get inside.

The rain taps on the car as if from far away as Robert turns on the engine and the holographic dashboard comes to life.  
He drives the car down an opposite road, similar to the one he drove through earlier that night but which will lead to an exit on the other side of the main forest road. It’s dimly lit by low, yellow neons that illuminate enough for the drivers to see where they’re going but that’s it. His hands leave Thirium stains all over the steering wheel. 

When Robert reaches the end of the road, where it opens up onto the main, asphalted one, he stops the car, headlights illuminating the dark forest on the other side.  
He looks at Connor, sitting in the passenger’s seat, wearing his suit jacket, which would have fitted him almost perfectly, if he would have been taller and his shoulders would have been wider. He's fucked up, fucked up from searching and trying to understand how to be human but at the same time, Robert doesn't have any intention to fix him. 

There is immense beauty in broken things, in ruins, and he can't stop looking. 

“You know what I am” Richard says, one hand on the steering wheel. The white lights of the car’s headlights make his eyes look even colder.

Connor’s eyes let him know that he never had a doubt. That he knows and that he is staying right there, next to him. 

**Author's Note:**

> If you have enjoyed the fanfic, please leave a comment, this fic is a work that differentiates itself from most of the other stuff I write and I took a long time to write it because it's very personal as well - your thoughts are appreciated and welcomed and they really mean a lot.
> 
> You can follow me on Twitter @betadeviant200 for updates and for all sorts of DBH-related shenanigans and more. I'll talk to anyone so you can drop me a word any time. 
> 
> Thank you for reading.


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